Chapter 08
"Okay, I'll be right there."
The night was dark. Tang Yuchuan stood up and took his coat while talking.
The voice on the other end of the phone was extremely low, but the two key words, funding breakpoint and Chen Shaoquan, were enough to make him realize the seriousness of the problem. After thinking about it, he still didn't ask any further questions on the phone.
The living room was dark, and he walked very quietly in the darkness, as if he was afraid to wake anyone. But in fact, Zou Ping had not yet gone to bed. She had been suffering from insomnia recently.
Zou Ping hesitated for a moment, but still stuck her head out from the bedroom door and watched him walk to the entrance, put on his suit, and lower his head to change his shoes.
"It's so late, are you going out?" she asked in a low voice.
He paused and said, "Something urgent happened at the company."
"Seriously?"
"possible."
She nodded without asking any more questions, but watched him open the door and step into the night.
The moment the door closed, she felt a chill. It wasn't the temperature, but an inexplicable premonition. Every moment of his silence lately seemed to conceal a vortex that she couldn't approach.
The lights in the company's conference room were on all night.
Tang Yuchuan stood in front of a whiteboard, a black marker in hand, his fingertips already turning slightly white. He listed several key financial milestones one by one, his brow furrowed.
"Shengyuan Power has confirmed its switch to Chen Shaoquan, and the divestment plan may have been finalized a month ago," the CFO said in a low voice. "At least a week ago, they excluded us from their internal meeting."
"Round C negotiations?" Tang Yuchuan asked.
"It hasn't been signed yet," another executive replied. "We submitted our documents early, but they suddenly asked for a 'core management team transition plan.'"
"What do you mean?" A senior executive frowned.
"It's very likely that someone is spreading rumors behind the scenes... They, they said that President Tang is about to step down and the management is unstable." He looked at Tang Yuchuan, "Chen Shaoquan, or someone under his command."
The conference room fell silent.
Tang Yuchuan stood still, his expression calm and almost indifferent. But only those who knew him well knew that a blood vessel under his eye had faintly bulged.
"Chen Shaoquan has been planning this for a long time, tampering with the three links of technology, finance, and external cooperation at the same time." He said in a low but powerful voice.
Someone asked, "What's our next step?"
"Tear it down." Tang Yuchuan answered slowly, "First, check the purchase documents according to the process. Meanwhile, I will talk to those venture capitalists."
"Do you need me to find a few people to accompany you?" The vice president was a little worried.
"At times like this, it's not about strength in numbers. Each of you just needs to do your job well."
Three o'clock in the morning.
Downstairs in the company, Tang Yuchuan leaned against the car door and lit a cigarette. He didn't smoke often, but today he needed a cigarette to suppress the turmoil in his heart.
He made three plans for himself and arranged the order of his visits for tomorrow.
The first is Feng'an Capital, the most crucial and difficult piece to crack. They control 30% of the subsequent round of funding, and whether they loosen their grip can determine whether the financing window will collapse.
The second company is Qingye, which has a vague attitude but does not have a deep understanding of the project and is easily influenced by market rumors.
The third one... He planned to stay until night. If the first two failed, he would still have a counter-attack.
As long as he can buy a week, he can stabilize the situation.
He knew that those venture capital firms weren't giving up, but were waiting for a signal to "change hands." He had to get ahead of that and speak up.
The audit was also a problem, and he couldn't wait. Although Chen Shaoquan's name wasn't mentioned explicitly, the frequency with which it appeared on the procurement report was enough to explain the problem.
He was tired, but couldn't stop.
He remembered the light at the moment before he went out, and the look Zou Ping gave him when she poked her head out of the bedroom.
She didn't ask anything, just looked at him.
He knew what he should say, like how they'd probably be staying up all night tonight, or that his silence these past few days wasn't just coldness. But when the words reached his lips, he swallowed them back.
He cared about her. This fact was clearer than he was willing to admit, but he couldn't get close to her easily.
He was much older than her, and all the things he had experienced, missed, and lost were like layers of fog, standing between them. He was not sure if he was ready to enter into another relationship.
He vaguely knew that she liked him, but he didn't know if he could bear her love. The past relationship was too deeply rooted in his heart, which resulted in him not having a relationship for many years.
Forget it, now is not the time to think about relationship problems.
At the same time, Zou Ping leaned against the head of the bed, with the screen of her mobile phone still on, and she deleted and edited the contents in the chat dialog box.
I want to ask him: Did something happen?
I want to ask him: Is there anything I can do to help you?
I want to ask him: Are you always so busy lately? Are you tired?
She locked her phone and placed it gently on the bedside.
She didn't ask.
Because she didn't think Tang Yuchuan was the kind of person who would like others to spy on his chaotic moments.
As the sky brightened, Tang Yuchuan stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in his office, his eyes looking through layers of glass at the white rising in the distant sky.
He stayed up all night, his desk covered with several sets of financial and procurement documents, and next to it, an unfinished draft of a report. He marked eight key links with a red pen and listed alternative plans and timelines for each risk point, practically re-examining the project operations through a "deconstruction and reconstruction" approach.
He made a detailed plan, which could ensure that the company's cash flow would last for 60 days even in the worst case scenario.
At half past eight, there was a knock on the door.
Secretary Miao Zhan walked in, holding a piece of investigation information in his hand, looking uneasy: "Mr. Tang, the procurement chain has been investigated and found traces of Hongsheng Group's manipulation. I seriously suspect that Chen Shaoquan's sudden attack may be related to Hongsheng..." He didn't say anything else.
The air seemed to freeze for two seconds.
Tang Yuchuan didn't speak immediately, his eyes fell on the title page of the report.
Miao Zhan flipped to the key page in the document. "Behind these fake quotations is a shell company called 'Yueneng Technology.' I've investigated, and the company's control ultimately fell under the name of Hongsheng. And Yueneng is one of the suppliers of core components for the new energy motor we're promoting this year."
"In other words, the funding cutoff, rumors, and disruption to venture capital were all caused by them."
Tang Yuchuan was silent for a moment, then asked calmly, "When did it start?"
"The earliest trace was four months ago."
"...At that time we had just signed a cooperation agreement with Huaneng Laboratory." Tang Yuchuan said in a low voice, his voice a little hoarse, as if he was confirming something.
He suddenly realized that all this was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but a premeditated purge.
He thought the feud between him and his son was settled. He had hurt his mother, stolen his lover, and spent over five years poaching the old team members from his company. But his father didn't want to let it go.
Tang Yuchuan leaned back in his chair, tilted his head back slightly, and the moment he closed his eyes, a fragment that had not been mentioned for many years suddenly emerged.
When he was five years old, he saw many of his father’s “clients” and “friends” in the living room of his home for the first time. At that time, he understood that marriage is not synonymous with loyalty.
When I was seven years old, my mother's mood began to fluctuate. Every time my father did not come home late at night, there would be screams and broken porcelain.
Starting when he was eight years old, his mother shifted her expectations from his father to him. She filled all his time with piano, mathematics, programming, English, etiquette... His mother's requirement was not "try your best", but "must be the best".
She said, "You are the only one I have, Yuchuan. You won't let me down, right?"
"Don't cry, Mom. I'll be obedient and work hard." This is what Tang Yuchuan said to his mother most often. He repeated it over and over again over the years, hoping that his efforts would cheer his mother up a little and make her happier.
Beneath the scale lies a suffocating perfectionism, a fearful, tense heart that wants to cry but dares not.
His mother eventually fell ill when he was sixteen. Before she died, she held his hand and said, "You must beat them. Win for me."
Tang Yuchuan never cried, and he never disobeyed.
He never hated his mother. On the contrary, his mother's love was once the only thing he had. Although this love was heavy, protecting his mother for a long time was the driving force behind his efforts.
He hated his younger self, the self who was powerless to protect his mother, who had to watch her struggle in pain and could only hide in the darkness and cry silently.
He hated himself for being too weak. His comfort was ineffective, his hugs could not bring warmth, and he had no ability to change his father or make his mother proud in her lifetime.
By the time he finally regained the strength to fight back, his mother had already passed away. The feeling of powerlessness and guilt pierced his heart like a thorn, constantly reminding him that he must never be weak again.
He hated his father even more, the one who shattered all the happiness and beauty in his family. That hatred, instead of just being an emotion, became the driving force behind his founding of Jingchuan after graduation.
He founded Jingchuan Yunneng, poached his uncle, cousin and other old people who were closer to his mother from Hongsheng, poached several key engineers from Hongsheng, and took several discovered young people to break into the new energy track.
In the first three years of financing, no one was willing to invest, and they survived by relying on government subsidies and selling some of the belongings left by their mother.
He had thought that this was enough revenge.
He no longer contacted Hongsheng's people and did not go to any occasion where his father was present.
But now, he understood—his father hadn't forgotten. He chose to reach out and overthrow everything at the height of his career, on the eve of the completion of his Series C round.
"Mr. Tang, we need authorization from the board of directors to freeze the accounts of Hongsheng's indirect shareholding suppliers." Miao Zhan whispered.
"Go prepare." He opened his eyes and spoke calmly, "Draft another statement to clarify the direction of the venture capital. The focus should not be on 'fighting back', but on 'clearing ourselves'. We need to show others that we are cleaner than Hongsheng."
"Also, contact Gu Xing."
Miao Zhan was stunned: "Gu Xing? You mean..."
"Yeah. He owes me a favor."
The sun finally rose outside the window, as if the last crack in the night had been sealed.
Tang Yuchuan stood up and buttoned the top button of his suit, as if he had returned to more than ten years ago. The head of the startup team once again put on his armor.
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